Jim Mahoney
American Thinker
6/7/2011
…To those of us who lived through it, the seventies made for a confusing and angry time. Every trip to the store was an adventure. Price labels grew on everything like barnacles. Peeling them back meant exploring an infuriating history of ever-increasing prices.
Politicians at every level seized the opportunity to scapegoat anyone who dared offer products for sale. Any producer or merchant, from farmers to property owners, was fair game. “Friends of the people” offered “solutions” of every kind, from rent control to price controls on gasoline.
Consumer journalists rose up, tempering their righteous finger-pointing with useful ideas to help stretch dollars. In spite of all their crusading, not one ever uncovered the rip-off happening before our eyes.
It took the great political contrast of 1980 to demonstrate by action what caused the pain and dislocation of the previous decade. The change in the political, economic, and intellectual winds beginning in 1980 revealed the truth for anyone willing to look.
Almost overnight, gas rationing ended, and the pump lines disappeared as the new administration lifted price controls. Eventually, after several years of painful austerity, the economy began to rebound, and ballooning prices settled down. With respect to oil, the economy entered a period of abundance and stability. It lasted about twenty years….
Read the entire article at the American Thinker.
